I tested Vivo's $500 rival to the Pixel 10a and iPhone 17e, and I'm genuinely impressed
Vivo's latest nod to the younger Gen Z crowd is a surprisingly decent mid-ranger.
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
The Vivo V70 is great value. | Image by PhoneArena
Question: How do you set yourself apart from the competition?
In the case of Vivo's most recent V70 mid-ranger, the answer is obviously to combine a cool new design language with a trendy and fun camera app and some pretty decent hardware specs for the price. And you know what? It works in the context of this device.
Launching in India in roughly a week's time, the phone starts at ₹49,999.00 (around $500) for the entry-level 8GB/256GB version, and at this price, this phone is an absolute steal! It successfully trades blows with other premium phones in the same price segment, like the iPhone 16e/17e and the Pixel 9a/10a, so if neither of Apple's or Google's offerings appeal to you, check this Vivo phone out.
Design and display
The Vivo V70 looks stunning. | Image by PhoneArena
Like on almost any other phone out there, there's a flat aluminum frame with a completely flat front panel and slightly rounded corners. Like most other phones hailing from China, this one features an IR sensor at the top. The phone is moderately thin at 7.6 mm and sits well in the hand, but nothing extraordinary stands out here.
While the phone is available in a slew of colors, the most interesting one is the one I have on me right now.
Aptly dubbed Golden Hour, it utilizes a shimmery gradient that ranges from soft purple to pastel-y pink, orange, and yellow. When you hold the Vivo V70 tilted, I swear you can sort of see a semi-cloudy sunset sky, and that's honestly spectacular. The phone definitely sets itself apart that way.
Golden Hour this certainly is. | Image by PhoneArena
Interestingly, we have the full IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance, which is the highest possible durability right now. Normally, I'd expect just an IP68 rating on a non-flagship phone, but Vivo surprises pleasantly. This means the phone would survive even high-pressure water jets and lengthy underwater submersion.
Not too large and not too small, just one perfectly sized screen. | Image by PhoneArena
At the front, I'm pleased to see a reasonably sized 6.6-inch AMOLED screen, with a 120 Hz refresh rate and fairly high peak brightness. We measured a 2,785-nit peak brightness, which is great news for a mid-ranger like the Vivo V70, and the screen isn't too bad either. Colors pop as they should, the color temperature is very close to the ideal range, and you also get many display tweaks that let you fine-tune the screen's appearance.
Display Measurements:
Notable here is the addition of an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner instead of an optical one. Usually, I'd expect to get an optical scanner on a mid-range device, but this serves as a pleasant surprise.
Camera and image quality
The Vivo V70's highlight is its fun camera. | Image by PhoneArena
The real highlight of the Vivo V70, like pretty much any other Vivo phone out there, is the camera. Similar to the X-series flagships, this one also has the Zeiss seal of approval, but it amps things up with a few intriguing, fairly unique features. We have a circular LED flash called Aura Light that doubles as fill light in the back.
That's because… Flash photography is cool again, everyone!
See, this phone's camera is oriented at the younger Gen-Z crowd that finds itself enamored with the idea of instant photography and tries to capture the physical aspect of it in the camera interface itself. While Vivo flagships have a dedicated street photography mode, this here Vivo V70 has a dedicated film camera layout that emulates the skeuomorphic appearance of a photo booth machine. It aims to capture images that have that very distinct lo-fi character that's often associated with early digital photography and instant cameras.
You feel as if you're standing in front of a photo booth. | Image by PhoneArena
To capture that old-school effect, the phone heavily relies on that Aura light, especially if you opt to shoot with the signature Pack film filter.
There's also a vlogging mode that lets you quickly record and merge videos like on TikTok, with many effects and presets available.
In case you intend to capture regular photos and videos, the phone has a 50MP main and a 50MP telephoto with 3X optical zoom, as well as a slightly narrow 8MP ultrawide. The image quality is more than decent. I'm once again impressed by the versatile camera app, which is full of useful features like live photos and customizable portraiture.
Once again –– the camera here isn't on the Vivo X300/X300 Pro levels of awesome, but it's pretty decent.
Vivo V70 camera samples
The only major feature missing? Pro controls for video recording.
Performance and battery life
A very decent set of hardware specs. | Image by PhoneArena
The Vivo V70 delivers pretty capable performance thanks to the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, which is an octa-core chip built on a 4 nm node. It performs fairly humbly in synthetic benchmarks. In the Geekbench 6 single- and multi-core benchmarks I ran, the Vivo V70 scored 1,368 points in the former and 4,269 points in the latter test.
However, in real life, the device isn't a slouch at all and is perfectly usable in most of the scenarios I could imagine.
The graphics performance is average at best but pretty much consistent with what I'd expect of such a device.
The phone comes with 12 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and starts with 256 GB of fast UFS 4.1 storage, which is excellent. You can also get the phone with 512 GB of storage, which should be helpful if you intend to capture plenty of stills and videos.
In terms of battery, the Vivo V70 is outfitted with a silicon-carbon 6,500 mAh battery. In the battery tests I ran, the phone achieved nearly 18 hours in the web browsing test, a little over 15 hours in the video streaming test, and twelve and a half hours in the 3D gaming test. Very promising endurance, that's for sure.
PhoneArena Battery Test Results:
There's also super-fast 90 W wired charging on board the Vivo V70, which is sufficiently fast to fully charge the phone in just 50 minutes. Not too shabby at all!
Conclusion: Who is it for?
Despite the exclusive camera features catering to the younger crowd, the Vivo V70 is one extremely decent phone that aims to be a jack of all trades… and seemingly succeeds in most areas!
Its display brightness, battery life, and charging speeds are all way above the average, while the camera image quality is better than what I anticipated. The performance isn't awe-inspiring, but at this price point, something has to give. The intriguing design and fun camera effects are also worthy of a mention.
Overall, the Vivo V70 is one fascinating alternative on the mid-range market that you should consider if your budget isn't sky-high.
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